During Takemoto’s defining journey in the narrative, Hagu wonders if Takemoto is lonely. Shuu-sensei says he probably is.

Loneliness comes suddenly like waves, one after the other, and recedes just as fast. That continues on forever. It’s the same for everyone.

I hit the pause button and light a cigarette. It wasn’t enough. I take a shower. It wasn’t enough. I felt so… bothered by what he said. It shouldn’t apply to me, at least not anymore. Shuu-sensei and I are around the same age (slightly over 30). He has remained single, I’ve been married for a few years and am to be a father soon. Why am I bothered? Could it be that I’m actually… lonely?

There was something about watching this show alone that produced a feeling of acute loneliness, something I didn’t know what to do with. It felt very odd, given how unreasonable it seemed in my own personal life.

I gave it some thought, and bring up memories of loneliness. I didn’t pay too much attention to those when I was actually younger and alone, broke and with no prospects. That’s easy to get over. I realize that the most awful feelings of loneliness I had (perhaps outside of big fights with my wife, where I feel both of us become the loneliest people in the world) was when I was among people I knew well. It’s easy to be lonely among strangers, and it’s easy to get over it too. When I feel lonely among friends, the waves come; my feet get wet on the loose sand, the water pushes at my knees. Never strong enough to topple me. It’s in my head where I feel thrown about.

How can one be lonely among friends?

It actually happened a lot. After college, my friends would get together. Many of them were starting to get ahead. They were getting employed, starting to have money to spend. They were headed places and started hanging out in trendy places. This would dominate conversation. I would feel so left behind. They’d be polite enough not to ask me, as they knew I was teaching part-time at our alma-mater, made little money, and spent it on grad-school related things. I was lucky just to be able to be with them. They knew it. I knew it.

So they would talk about the people they met in some club, and what this certain office mate’s hobbies were like (I’d hear about snorkeling, fashion, travel, cars, gadgets). Nobody was really interested in discussing Eastern European novels anymore, now that they don’t have homework. And no, there wasn’t a lot of anime around that time (the time before torrents) and these people are hip and worldly.

But they loved me. We were friends. I didn’t hold their interests against them. I was still banging my head on the wall trying to win writing fellowships and contests, to no avail. At some point during the gathering one of them would be genuinely interested and ask about how my writing is going. Given my results, I didn’t really want to talk about it myself. Before long I would long to leave, while nursing a drink in the middle of a circle of people who are genuinely having a fun time, people who are oblivious to the frightening loneliness I was feeling.

Good thing alcohol can be a great equalizer. Everyone ends up sharing the same old stories. The waves recede, even if only because in these old stories they tell, I was still living in them.

This was period that began over a decade ago, when I was a little more like Takemoto and less like Shuuji. Takemoto was seeing his talented friends start going places, getting jobs, making money. He felt left behind, because even Hagumi who was younger than him was going places (even if she didn’t really want to, she was being pressured to). I reflect on this more and see that Shuuji himself felt this way. After all, I was a teacher like him — knowing so much about art (literature in my case), to know that I wasn’t good enough to aspire for greatness. His best friends were immediately successful. So were mine. Honey and Clover uses characters as refrains of themes.

Mayama and Nomiya who are plays on the same character at different times in their life (to drive home the point, they are both named Takumi, are entangled with Ayu even if for different reasons, and yes both deal with unreturned affection). Ayu and Mayama are plays on the inability of romance to emerge from the intimacy of friends; Ayu’s epiphany comes when she has to turn down so many suitors at once, all of them friends from childhood. Morita and Takemoto are plays on conflict avoidance; Takemoto runs away when they happen, Morita weirds it up to avoid causing the kind of conflict he doesn’t want to deal with (he hides as well).

And loneliness comes in waves upon these characters, in different times, as intensely as shuuji says they do, and recedes just as fast; distinct from the overall melancholy that sits upon their brows, the sadness that hangs over their shoulders throughout the course of the narrative. Hagumi who was isolated by her giftedness, Morita by his disappearances and the needs that caused them, Mayama by Rika, Ayu by Mayama, Takemoto by his initial cowardice and ultimately like many of the characters here by unreturned love.

Morita made money, that’s his thing. Ayu got drunk and made vases. Mayama smoked while stalking. Hagumi would freeze and not paint or sculpt. Takemoto found out that human beings couldn’t sleep unless they were near a tree or beside a wall.

I played video games, mostly. I did find out that gratification from playing was frightfully useless.

I look back into Honey and Clover. Ayu’s pottery teacher told her that there are things or feelings that one couldn’t do anything about. In these cases it’s best to moves one’s hands. Given I have no craft in comparison to the characters of Honey and Clover, I did my best to write this essay.

Further Reading

(Honey and Clover Circle Jerk 2009)

A Thematic Analysis of Honey and Clover (Eternal 2009/07/28)

A critique of ‘A Thematic Analysis of Honey and Clover‘ (lolikitsune 2009/08/02)

A shameful otaku learns to let go through watching this show (otou-san 2009/08/08)

Honey and Clover inspires personal reflection (usagijen 2009/08/09)

I particularly like this panel from Solanin, it’s something random and commonplace in the manga — I don’t even remember from what chapter it came from. However, I think it represents my experience of the work. If I experience it from the eyes of clueless young adulthood, there is a myth of true adulthood and maturity — or at least it’s obscured from view. I can’t see what’s on top of the bridge.

If that bridge is what connects my youth to responsible adulthood, I don’t know what’s on it, who’s on it, and how fast they go. Instead I can see clearly the familiar world of my youth. I can still hang out in the old university haunts, where the most comfortable coffee shops are, where to best get cheap food, which part time jobs give the best pay for the least work. Places to survive, places to keep this life going, though it never really goes anywhere, does it? There are no real spoilers in this post.

I’m an adult. I’m 32 years old, but I still feel acutely the life that immediately followed graduation from university. It’s the time when one’s big dreams are introduced to the world where they’re supposed to become real. The comforting routines of university life still have a strong pull, yet one feels, expects things to start falling into place. I remember applying for my first job outside the university where I was a part time lecturer.

I wholly expected the manager to be blown away. I was an awesome student from a top tier university. He should be lucky to have the opportunity to have me (and my chest-length hair in a ponytail). I truly was rather put-off that I didn’t get the job (selling condominiums). To think that baldy manager would ask me to cut my hair! He can keep his crummy condominiums. I spit at the idea of selling something I couldn’t afford to get for myself. (Actually, I was pissed that I lost the opportunity to turn him down; ahhh the mistakes of youth).

Maybe I shouldn’t have quit teaching yet. But it’s too late. I’ve made my bed. This is how Solanin starts. Our protagonist Meiko quits her full-time OL job because he felt like it was headed nowhere. It ground and crushed her spirit, surviving the day to day life in Tokyo. The circumstances in my leaving the university are different, but I did feel this way when I did join corporate at some point. Having left her job, and having nothing to do with all her free time, Meiko discovers the emptiness and prison of freedom without a purpose.

I feel like her boyfriend, Taneda anticipated this when his band performed in their graduation concert. It was spectacular in its awkwardness. This isn’t Beck,vor Nana where young musicians are brimming with talent and it was just a matter of time when the world finds out about how awesome or appealing these musicians are. There is a power in the earnestness of the performance, despite the lack of talent. It could’ve been your band! It certainly felt like mine in a way.

When you’re going to fail, do it this way. Turn a disaster into GAR spectacle. Turn your immature, cop-out whining into a strong statement. When you fail to remember your lyrics, deliver a speech scored by ROCK.

Taneda’s spoken word freestyle/improv piece:

Are you ready? I’m going to say some heavy shit!

This is a time when planes crash into buildings, and was start a million miles away!

This is a me that feels disgusted that I slightly get excited about the whole thing!

We’ve got no light of hope in our future! Nothing is going to happen!

Our lives will be dull as rocks! Maybe it’s a life of boring happiness!

But I don’t want to be an adult who pretends to be satisfied with it!

Congrats for graduating into people, people!

But I… I… …I need more time.

Until I find an answer. Even if it’s dangerous, Even if it lasts untile the end of the Earth…

I need to walk my own path.

I imagine myself being in that concert, at 22 years old; and had this happened right in front of me, I would’ve been very moved. I feel like Solanin works best in the beginnings and ends of its two volumes. The middle can get confusing, in that it tempts me to think of it as an upbeat romantic comedy. It fills me with hope, in how these characters may actually becomse something big.

The endings, and especially the finale itself give me something very very familiar.

Not that very familiar in the experience of manga, but rather something very commonplace in life. An obscured view of what’s on top of the bridge, but a clear, detailed, and familiar view of the limited world beneath it.

Further Reading

WRL’s (informal) series of posts on cruel and painful works:

• Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: War in the Pocket
• Onani Master Kurosawa
• Honey and Clover
• Bokurano
• Welcome to the NHK

Fuzakenna’s post series on personallyRL influential works (digitalboy 2009/08/16)

As a kid I was very much into astronomy, and the stars and constellations was very much my thing. Oh to be a grade-schooler oblivious of the rigors of astrophysics and its related mathematics! It was all romance then. I would bring a flashlight with red cellophane over the lens to reduce light pollution, but bright enough to read constellation charts to this strip of concrete in the middle of a large grassy vacant lot by the creek.

I called the place my ‘UFO Landing Strip’ (yeah I was 10, no I hadn’t seen E.T. yet). There I spent many nights trying to identify the constellations, and back then I got to know many stars by name, particularly those whose names were given by Greek mythology. My favorite sky is that of winter, when it gets to be truly dazzling:

Click the arrow for a constellation guide [->]

Betelguese, Rigel and the Great Nebula from Orion; Sirus from Canis Major; Aldebaran and the Pleides from Taurus. Those are the stars I can remember by name without looking at the sky itself, or on a constellation chart. It pleases me that my daughter will be born under this winter sky, just as I was.

In a rather powerful way, I could relate to Senjougahara. When I was 15 I was lured into a room by my hairstylist who flattered me with an endorsement for a modeling gig and he had me try on clothes. I had no idea what I was getting myself into until I was trying on animal print swimming trunks. The phone rang and he had to get it, and I changed back into my clothes and ran from his house. I ran and ran until I was utterly exhausted.

The end of that school year my vernacular language teacher told me that the only way I could avoid getting kicked out from school was to re-take his finals. Again I found myself in swimming trunks in a classmate’s swimming pool (I didn’t have any so she had me wear his brother’s red stripey things) where my teacher and 2 of his other male friends had drinks by the poolside.

The teacher had me go to his house that night so I can re-take the test. I brought my mother along that time.

But I was ashamed, so very ashamed. And I hated gay people for the next few years. I joined a poetry contest in my freshman year in university and wrote a gay hate poem in rhyme. It was a long terrible thing too. It was through my lesbian homeroom professor — who was spectacularly patient with me, that I overcame my hate and thereafter took 9 units in gender studies; and became friends with gay and lesbian people. I don’t think I would’ve been accepted as faculty of the literature department later on, had I not accepted people and their life choices — which had nothing to do, with the perversity of the individuals I met when I was 15.

Maybe it would’ve been harder had I been actually touched or groped like Senjougahara. But I wasn’t, and for that I’m very thankful. We are different too in that my sky was there before these ugly things happened. I’m not sure I can say the same for her. In any case she found it soon enough, and I know exactly what she means when she acts like it’s a sky that’s hers to give away.

Click on the arrow for a constellation guide [->]

I don’t have the same affinity for the summer sky. I even like the sky of fall more, but this isn’t important. I’m just glad I can write about Bakemonogatari this way. I feel fortunate that when the time came, I could give more than just the night sky, help with studies, and clever banter to the person I love. However, it took a so (many years). Senjougahara is off to a great start if I think about it.

It’s no wonder really why so many of us like her. We too, can have the cheek and the power, to give someone the night sky away.

Further Reading

Digital images courtesy of All the Sky.

Diary of an Anime Lived is a series of posts across the sphere organized by 21stcenturydigitalboy in Fuzakenna! I wrote this somehow in the spirit of that series too.

My original post on Bakemonogatari 12, it’s more about the episode itself in case you want to remember love that way [->]

I am writing this after a long day, and I needed to let a few things out of me. I took a shit and a shower and it didn’t quite do it. I needed something more. I felt like I needed to talk to you.

What does it mean anyway, to say a day is long? Your legs are long, long like swords, rapiers that bend and give; gracious and deadly. Does a long day mean there’s more time? That there are more seconds in each minute, more minutes in each hour?

It is but we do more or feel more things in the seconds that pass that there’s more life to our life. It is funny how we say it as a complaint. Perhaps I am merely making light of our suffering and our boredom.

But you, you’re never bored are you? I cannot imagine you living a boring second in your existence. I imagine you in the people I’ve met in school — a somewhat distant past now; but not really.

You and I could never have been friends, not that you could have been friends with anyone. You walk from across a class divide. You are a prince among us and you would not suffer the company of a commoner like me.

I wouldn’t be friends with you anyway. I would have judged you the way a lamb judges the eagle; listening to its mother’s stories how you tore her sisters one after the other with merciless talons.

But I am jealous, yes I am. While my future promises me hooked horns, I would gladly trade them for the wings you already have. You circle around the campus away from anyone’s reach, and the poor ewes surrender to you the moment you descend upon them.

When you swoop, the lambs bleat — but not long, just long enough to be music. I want this power too. I try to imitate your noble screeching, but I am a Wyclef Jean to your Bob Marley. No, the lambs still cry. End them for me Akio. Do what you do.

Back in school I didn’t date even those who I believe I can win with my charms. Why? Not only was I poor, I was poor in a way that is damning: I didn’t own a car, and worse — I didn’t know how to drive.

Even if I had the charm and cheek to borrow a car, I wouldn’t know how to use it. The very best bred I never took to bed, and I hate you for it. You, I hate, for driving around flaunting the flaunters riding with you. Who’s flaunting who?

They’ll all be dead soon, someday.

Won’t you give me a ride Akio? I’ll be a Saionji to your Toga. I’ll gladly play your fool, if I can hope to be you in a world I can remake in your image.

I can hear it too! My soul hasn’t completely given up. I can hear the sound that races through the End of the World.

Further Reading

Less confused writing: The Black Rose Arc [->]

Written in real time, a diary of an anime lived.

One Year Ago…

I became a Gundam Fanboy [->]

This is not a review.

A friend and contemporary in anime blogging gave me the task of writing how great Planetes is and gave me three days to do so. I thought at first that this was the easiest job in the world because Planetes is great, and to me, undeniably so. But then, how exactly is it great? There’s so much goodness in it – be it contemplative, corny, inspiring, laugh-out-loud funny, tear-jerkingly-sad, melancholic, and grindingly great. What would I talk about? Where should I start?

In the end it is an easy job after all. To me, Planetes is great because it told a story that is set in a fantastic fictional world and yet that story is made of the truth about things. It told stories, it told real stories about how it is to be an adult. It told my story too (and I’m in the middle of my own personal Planetes arc). And I will tell you if you would do me the honor of reading.

You see, this man is me and his story is my own:

Dolf founded Traum Space Development, a venture company with Fee Carmichael. Traum had a good run until meeting natural limits to growth, specifically an inability to scale operations at the level Multinational Corporations can.

There’s no turning back from humanity’s new way of life. And we have to rely on space for the energy to support that way of life. Space development requires that you work on a large scale. Funding. Organization. Political clout. Without those you get swallowed up by another entity.

Dolf let Technora acquire Traum and was absorbed into the larger firm. He found himself a Division Manager, and Fee became a team leader within the Debris Collection Section where she can still pilot a ship.

Being an outsider, he was not welcomed by the Technora incumbents, who tolerate him because of his stellar productivity. His excellence became a threat however, and he was banished to a shell company ‘subsidiary.’ Dolf turned that around and used the opportunity to broker a deal with the chief developer of the ship headed to Jupiter which gave him leverage over Technora.

Dolf cut a deal with the distasteful Dr. Locksmith to find his own independence as a manager and rejected Technora’s overtures to give him a ‘lapdog’ VP position. Dolf is a badass, and I am too.

…well not really, but there are some personally striking parallels. I won’t get into some details of my own story since it’s ongoing (I’m in the thick of some nasty drama). While I haven’t been in management as long as Dolf has (maybe a decade or so for him to my 6 years or so), I’ve gone through some of the shit he’s gone through and prevailed in.

When I was an entry-level grunt (I was often this at many jobs: lecturer at university, copywriter, production assistant, producer for radio news and public affairs, paralegal, etc) I couldn’t wait to become ‘one of them,’ and by that I meant management. It was either become them or hate them.

I had left grad school with a Marxist view on things, and mingling mostly with fellow entry-level grunts I found it easy to distrust management. To us they were but gatekeepers who distribute favor and rewards. The real work was done by us proles. I felt we were the ones who always get shafted while managers get to order us around and get paid much better.

I was so fucking wrong.

Around 2004 I got my first break and was hired on the spot as a manager for training and development in a call center. The guy who hired me and was supposed to be my boss got promoted within months of my joining and I was floating until absorbed by the human resources department. Within that unit I built my own Organization Development sub-unit.

Middle management was the fucking worst place to be in. Supervisors, and front-line managers have the unenviable problem of having so much responsibility with laughable authority. I was in a huge company, around 4,000 employees which would balloon to about 6,000 when I left. I was able to observe so many middle managers at work. They were answerable to so many higher-ups, who gave moving targets and inconsistent directives. Us middle managers would have to sell these to the staff.

The staff had us. How so? It’s because they could just quit; when they do, overall productivity suffers and it’s on us. There was such a huge demand for skilled call center workers at the time so the proles really had us by our nuts. We really didn’t make any important decisions – only carry out directives from senior managers.

When I was a grunt I hated managers (I couldn’t distinguish managers from each other then). We fellow grunts enjoyed manipulating them, tricking them, running rings around them. When I was a middle manager, I couldn’t help but begin hating the staff (not my own staff who were awesome, but staff in general) who were selfish, narrow minded short-sighted good-for-nothings.

But I hated senior managers even more.

They couldn’t make up their fucking minds. They had no idea how to run the place. They were putting us in the firing line while they issue directives from the safety of their offices. Worse, they put on airs. They think they’re so awesome and expect to be treated special due to their rank.

I did love my boss though, but they shafted her. When they forced her out (due to character assassination and blackmail), I turned in my resignation as well. I landed on my feet in an international corporation and was now a senior manager myself who reported directly to the Board of Directors and the Chairman himself.

Now I finally am a man.

Now it will be different. I get to do real business now, or so I thought. To be fair, I did and am proud of the work I accomplished. But at this level, it’s really shitty too. Now the egos are really, really huge. And people fought. Boardrooms were cesspools of inauthenticity. People say yes, but mean fuck you. Now the work is about making deals.

You try to make deals with really shitty people. I got played. I played harder. I told myself I would never fuck anyone over. I’m proud that I never did. The dread that crept up to me was that the higher your rank, the more compromised you become. The higher you go up, the less people you can trust. It’s not even personal! This isn’t just about the inside of the corporation – it extends to the world of clients, partners, suppliers, and the government.

Now I finally am THE man.

I found myself in government last year, in a government owned and controlled corporation (a GOCC, the fucking worst of both worlds). While nowhere as naive as I was at 22, at 32 I was no longer concerned at becoming popular. Having been issued a clear mandate as a chief of my own division, I was prepared to be hated and would not compromise.

After fighting and scrapping both known enemies and traitors, I witnessed the chief executive get replaced by the President of the Republic. This new guy, he actually had the cheek to tell me how big a part I’m going to play in his administration, and gave me a great assignment. I finished it in record time under duress.

After submission, he then purged the whole organization of everyone I am associated with, me included. Due to the upcoming national elections in June, I can’t get appointed to my next organization until July. I’m fucked, but not defeated.

You see, the things that happened to me is similar to Dolf’s career but his prevailing over adversity isn’t the source of my power. Among Planetes characters I may seem like Dolf outwardly, but the core of me is Tanabe Ai. I actually fucking love doing good work. I may not be as detail-oriented, or even an operations guy like Dolf who can run things like clockwork (I’m a planner, an idea man), or as industrious as Tababe, but like her I love – period. The things I do are worthwhile because I do it with love.

Planetes is awesome because its portrayal of how organizations behave, and how people behave within it rings true. I’ve seen these slices of life in many lives among the office ladies and salarymen in my own milieu. I’ve seen these play out in university, an advertising firm, a broadcast network, sales organizations, a political party during an election campaign, a call center or three, a BPO or three, a conglomerate, and in government.

You will meet awesome, awesome people. Sometimes, these same people will suck. Most people do, but sometimes they will surprise you with awesomeness too.

Jobs are often easy or hard depending on the people you work with, or work for. Saying how awesome Planetes is, working with the context of my own experience of the show is really the easiest job in the world.

Further Reading

Enjoy the TV Tropes page, from which I excerpt this:

Mohs Scale Of Sci Fi Hardness: Perhaps the hardest science fiction ever produced. Let’s assess; Detailed orbital mechanics, realistic effects of space on health, dependency theory, diapers under spacesuits, and invisible laser beams. INVISIBLE LASER BEAMS. Even the gratuitous In Space Everyone Can See Your Face is justified as mere thematic close-ups on the characters’ faces — with their faceplates down. Its premise — the collection of space garbage to prevent multimillion-dollar spacecraft from being scrapped by screws — is a Real Life problem but economically unfeasible (nowadays we Just Ignore It – military satellites are fitted with maneuvering thrusters to dodge but nobody cleans it up), but this is actually a major plot point — though the job is essential to actual commercial space travel, the fact that nobody can find a way to make money off it means they ignored it right up until the accident that killed Yuri’s wife.Then the Debris Sections were formed in response to public outcry — and staffed by underpaid office drones with gear older than they are.

Yes! This is how businesses and governments behave too!

If you want to introduce someone to Planetes and you don’t want to show a review, here’s the secret (otou-san 12/09/2009)

A great look into Hachimaki, who I practically ignored in this post (Shinmaru 01/27/2010)

A collection of concise posts on interesting moments in Planetes (schneider 2009)

Planetes speaks the language of love (gaguri 08/21/2009)

This is not a review.

I generally fail at following this show. I rely on reading blog posts to understand what’s going on. As much as I fail at this, I can at least appreciate what seems to me on of the core themes of the show: failure itself. Episode three in particular, speaks of it clearly to me.

The myth of Icarus, is a tale of failure, where the young boy whose father fashioned a pair of wings from feathers and wax flew too close to the sun and too close to the sea in a fit of heedlessness and consequently melted the wax binding the feathers together and plunged into the sea. It is a story of someone doing what’s more than necessary, in this case to escape from captivity on the island of Crete.

In this episode Akashi and her college circle engineered a flying machine for a competition. She designed it to be flown by someone whose physical traits were so slight and lacking of mass, and “I” was the perfect fit for the machine and the competition. He failed spectacularly by training hard to build strength, and therefore gaining mass. The flying machine was no longer fit for him, so close to the competition.

“I” spectacularly failed at something by exceeding expectations. Akashi engineered a prototype flying machine to his current specifications. She and her ‘circle’ not only didn’t want him to change, but also didn’t expect him to be capable of changing. That is, no one expected him to actually train for the flight test and competition. By exerting effort, “I” failed.

I suppose it’s easy enough to read this as I wanting to change, to exert effort, to try hard, in order to impress others most notably Akashi; while Akashi just wants him the way he is. It’s a reassuring, feel-good message. This isn’t what got to me this episode. It isn’t even the somewhat conflicting message of “do your best to better yourself” and “accepting yourself for who you are (and others for who they are) and not what you want yourself (and others) to be.”

It’s just the horrible feeling of failing at something despite tremendous commitment, but because you were doing it wrong.

I graduated from elementary at the top of my class (it was a very small school), and moved on to a large high school. My idea of “fitting in” was competing hard for grades and impressing my teachers. People looked at me like I was nuts. The truly smart people didn’t really want to make friends with me and I was kind of stuck with slacker nerds. I was 13, and I totally overcompensated by going Bancho which shocked everyone who knew me so far and climbed to the top of the gangs of delinquents by the end of senior year.

For a time I was cool, and was popular/notorious because I had friends (and thuggish senpai) among the upperclassmen. By senior year, nobody gave a shit about punk bad boys. The fashionable bad boys were rich kids who had cars and took girls on drives. I was irrelevant, despite being at the top, a ‘Grand Triskelion’ of the Tau Gamma Phi chapter in our school.

To cap it off, I was denied participation to our graduation because I beat up a punk three days before graduation day. We both had it coming. Yay me.

I promise you, this is not the only time something like this happened. Throughout university, then after graduation, I would launch hard into a certain direction, change course mid-way at full speed, ridiculously overcompensate, then humiliate myself. Allow me to stress this: these periods lasted years, just like “I” in Tatami Galaxy. Truthfully, my life didn’t start turning out until I was 27 years old (I am 33 now).

Watching this episode was rough. I was retching and wanted to puke. The story wasn’t tragic. “I” didn’t elicit sympathy from me. What I had for him was disgust for his pathetic existence. I found him neither funny or inspiring. In him, and in the circumstances he found himself – however absurd, I felt forcefully reminded of all the fail in my life since I started thinking about why I wanted things.

This is the point of this essay when you’d expect me to say that things are okay now. I have a lovely wife and a cute daughter and got farther in my career than many of my contemporaries (or people my age). No. Far from it. The problems I deal with now are far more complex and consequential than ever. The failures I face more humiliating and punishing, since there’s far more at stake.

But I’m far tougher. My soul is not charred with idleness and wasted passion. I may not know whether I prevail or not over the problems I face, but I am more Sisyphus than I am Icarus. I can be with having to roll up the rock I am given up this hill, never knowing if there is a point ever to come of this. Myself at 17, whose younger brothers were never bothered by thugs because my name was feared throughout the schools in the area, has nothing on me as I am today (though no one is, or should be afraid of me anymore).

If you’ve read this far, thank you for indulging me. I’m a sucker for an affecting story, and Tatami Galaxy 03 (Cycling Club Soleil) got me good. Let me leave you with this, a glimpse into one of my failures:

At university I was trained for two things; the scholarship for literature, and the craft of writing poetry. Today I am neither a literary scholar, nor a practicing poet. My specialization in poststructuralism and post-colonial theory made me irrelevant in an era of Philippine literary scholarship dedicated to retrieve, archive, and translate 50,000 years worth of (often oral) literary traditions in over 70 vernacular languages.  While I got published in a couple of magazines a few times, I failed at getting into poetry fellowships and never won the contests I joined.

But I loved literature and loved poetry, and, I absolutely loved this poem, that this episode of Tatami Galaxy made me remember love for it:

Musee des Beaux Arts

by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith and Monroe K. Spears,
Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden.

As Auden tells me how Breughel tells it, my melancholy over my failures is of concern only to me. Carry on dear reader, again thank you for indulging me.

Note: The painting by Breughel that Auden speaks of is above the second paragraph of this blog post.

Far more useful posts on Tatami Galaxy

Tatami Galaxy and Our Inevitable Mistakes (8C 05/08/2010)

Red String Theory and the New Fascination: Thoughts on Tatami Galaxy (2DT 05/19/2010)

Tatami Galaxy 3 and 4 (Vendredi 05/14/2010)

Fast Dialogue is Fast for a Reason (Bateszi 04/24/2010)

[While there is no discussion of aquatic vessels in this post, spoilers are in these waters]

Watching School Days was awful. It’s not one of those shows that is gripping despite the cringe-inducing events being narrated. I thought Kaiji was tough to watch, but that show had a lot going for it in terms of the the drama and excitement of gambling. School Days only has romance and sex to keep the excitement levels up. As a romance, it’s awful (more like the failure of romance), and as sexual content is concerned, there’s a lot of it but it’s by no means anything more than a visual tease, and not that exciting anyway.

Having said all that, I think School Days is important. I think it’s remarkable and provocative. It’s suggested to me that it is a parody of the tradition of Ecchi and eroge specifically (the more gratuitous sexual harem tradition of harem shows). I have very little experience with this tradition, so I will limit my speculation regarding this particular aspect of this analysis.

But yes, there is parody perhaps by way of deconstruction in that School Days takes the tropes of the tradition apart and puts it back together in unexpected or at the very least non-traditional ways. Like how SDS put it, it answers the question “what would happen if a harem lead actually went after all the girls?” (sexually). Well, there will be consequences. I will look into those, but specifically in the light of the idea of the rake, or the sexually successful young male.

The Dangerous Young Man

There is a difference between Makoto and the concept of the rake. The rake is what would be commonly thought of as a playboy, but the tradition of rakes is an English one.

The long heyday of the English rake lasted roughly from 1660, when Charles II returned from exile, until the death of George IV in 1830. There was a brief revival of some aspects of rakish behaviour among the cronies of Edward, Prince of Wales, in the second half of the nineteenth century. After that, what later became known as Victorian values made such behaviour largely unacceptable.

The first attribute of the rake was cold hedonism rather than grand romantic passion. He was usually a cynical exploiter of woemen, often a reckless gambler, sometime a touchy egoist quick to take offence and to seek redress in duels. He could be a good friend and a bad enemy. He was often aristocratic and sometimes rich.

There were of course womanisers and bullies in other countries, but there was widespread acceptance that the English rake was the most cynical, heartless and brutal of the type.

– Fergus Linnane, “The Lives of the English Rakes”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester: one incredibly degenerate douchebag

In anime, such characters would appear in the shojo tradition, either perhaps as a character to be redeemed by women (Ichinose Takumi and Okazaki Shinichi from Nana, Mori Ranmaru from Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge, The Red King from Basara), or as tragic villains (Kiryuu Toga and Ohtori Akio from Revolutionary Girl Utena). These characters can range from mischievous to degenerate, but are otherwise very tame compared to the rakes of (English) history.

What’s important here, is that all of them are Alpha Males, competing or banding together with other alpha males. School Days’ Makoto, is no alpha male.

Makoto is, weak, lacking in self-confidence, naive, and very much the template self-insert character in the harem tradition. However, he is also regarded as “zeitgeist of worthless male leads.” He ends up doing pretty terrible things, all related to sex and relationships with the women he interacts with (some of them are dear friends to each other, some are his friends). He is awful and irredeemable, and he was murdered spectacularly by the one he corrupted the most – actively, and through his irresponsible negligence.

To get to that end however, School Days relies on contrivance to sexually pair Makoto with so many girls. At the onset, Makoto is an Omega Male, that is the opposite of the kind of confident and capable male that attracts women. Sekai is the one who, by lavishing attention to him and showing her own (then) unlikely attraction for him enabled him to “climb the steps of adulthood,” that is, have sex and have the (unwarranted) confidence to get sexual favors from women.

It is remarkable, that with all Sekai’s attempts to make Makoto fit for romantic relationships, he makes no progress at all. He has truly nothing to offer women except a willing penis to indulge their sexual curiosity, and (quite sadly,) their romantic insecurities.

But how is the contrivance executed? Episode after episode Makoto becomes worse and worse, but his stock among women rises higher and higher. Back story and flashbacks reveal Makoto to be an upstanding young man, considerate and “princely” (in the Utena sense) to young girls. Sekai does a background check and reveals Makoto to be enjoy a concord of approval from school society. Makoto has always been a catch, the school’s best-kept secret. He’s not an omega, he is at least an Omicron Male, or maybe even higher in the Greek alphabet.

In the tradition of American high school love stories, there are always alpha males, and the omicron males are portrayed as outliers even within their omega society. These omicrons are ugly ducklings who clean up nice but often compete directly with the alpha males who are portrayed as insensitive jerks, or as villainous rakes. In Japanese harem anime tradition, the alpha males are non-existent. There is no threatening male competition for our omegas and omicrons. There is no such competition for Makoto.

Sawanaga would have been, and it’s part of Kotonoha’s terrible irony that she let that guy deflower her. But it was the first time wherein the male was not in power – he had no power and posed no threat to anyone despite himself (openly lecherous and obviously attracted to Kotonoha that way). Kotonoha let him have sex with her, she was a gatekeeper who did not participate in the act emotionally, thereby retaining all romantic and sexual power when it was time for her to reckon with him (to dismiss him). This guy is not competition for Makoto.

The Triangle and the Female Protagonists

With all this focus on Makoto, School Days actually has multiple protagonists. The female characters have a lot of agency and have distinct narratives as characters even if they all point toward Makoto. School Days passes the Bechdel Test of Feminist criticism. No one is going to argue however, that this show positively portrays females. To be fair, this show doesn’t portray human beings as inspirations to follow.

Kotonoha and Sekai are protagonists just as Makoto is, and form the points in the primary triangle within the harem. The difference is the levels of cowardice in both. Kotonoha was a coward to face the reality that Makoto is wholly undeserving of her affections and persisted with her delusions. She is a coward in how she lets herself be bullied by her peers. Otherwise, she is a moral center in the show up until the end. But this is a kind of moral center that is passive and victimized. Her morality is straight from the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the meek… Blessed are the clean of heart…”). She is what is pure besieged by corruption. She succumbs to it in the worst way at the worst time, and her recourse to all of this is her spectacular revenge.

Sekai too, was a moral center of the show up until she gave in to the Makoto who she spoiled. Sure, as Setsuna notes she’s inauthentic the whole time, but I submit that there are good intentions there. She would have suffered losing to Kotonoha if Makoto did make his girlfriend happy the way Sekai trained him to, and if he became happy for it. But no, there are suppressed desires among sexes and Sekai had stronger dosages of both repression and desire.

The important thing to consider is how Sekai is the catalyst. She is the active facilitator of the romantic and sexual devolution of their corner of their high school society. The Basketball Club’s antics with the sex tapes indicate a pretty degenerate sexual youth culture, but for the initially “pure” members of the triangle, Sekai initiated the action.

I am fond of emperorj’s description of this show as a descent into hell. Hell in this case is a world of deceitful humans with no accountability, where one’s heart’s wishes are given no consideration. I think it’s also remarkable how sex is an end that is not particularly given thematic or symbolic weight. It is treated as an end for males to arrive to, and as a means for females to arrive to something else.

Females are portrayed as sexually attractive, but there is no portrayal of any actual pleasure from sex, except that when the males get some of it, they want more of it. The females, nothing. We can make the conjecture that they must like it at some level for them to persist in it, but this is wholly ignored and it is very interesting how it’s all ignored. This too, is hell.

A Personal Note

Why do we hate Makoto? Since the tradition of harem literature provides for self-insert characters, I will relate to Makoto as well as shamelessly speak for other male viewers. Of course I will be often wrong in many cases, but I suspect that I will represent quite a few viewers too.

We hate Makoto because we wanted some of what he got. We don’t think he deserved any of the attention he got, but more importantly the sexual action he got. I was no rake in high school, but I was no wallflower either. I was an honor-student-turned-bancho and for years I enjoyed notoriety and attention. Could I have gotten away with some of what Makoto did? Maybe I could have. I didn’t, and I tell myself it’s because I’m a better man than Makoto. (Which is true but…)

Even if I weren’t getting the attention that I did, I would’ve been (as most of us would) a better human being than him, though perhaps most of us can relate to his lack of confidence. In hindsight I didn’t quite lack it as bad as harem leads – I got turned down by my one pure crush after all, year after year. Part of that devotion to the attainable is cowardice too (to fail where I’m supposed to be able to score) – but yes the antipathy towards Makoto is also guilt and regret for missed opportunities in youth.

The important thing here is, we may strongly disapprove of (alpha male) rakes, but a lot of this is Nietzchean slave morality. We hate Makoto because he shares many of our traits, but instead becomes successful like the rakes, in un-rakish fashion: without overarching villainy, without determination and making a project or lifestyle out of things, by being a leaf in the wind of high school sex and romance, and wholly without a chance of, or with such disinterest in, actually being with women and relating with them as human beings.

When we see the Kiryuu Togas and the Ohtori Akios fall, we take satisfaction in their comeuppance but somehow enjoy it with a different kind of schadenfreude. We don’t relish their fall, more than we delight in the triumph of the protagonists that best them. Makoto we can or are invited to relish in his fall, his grisly death. We are asked to look at the dark characters in the looking glass (Sekai too), and enjoy their terrible murders.

Me, I’m numbed by it all. I think Kotonoha is the tragic heroine of the show, and there is no redemption, no solace, and no future for her.

—

The evil in School Days is cowardice, lust, avarice, and irresponsibility. These are all very relatable failings, things we see in ourselves past and present. It is present among almost all characters in the show the same way it is present in different degrees in all of us. Makoto makes it easy for us to relate to all of this, superbly performing his function as a self-insert character in the Japanese harem narrative tradition.

Further Reading

A Diary post on how my experience with an alpha male like Ohtori Akio.

A less mature reflection on the concept of omega males getting attention from high school’s hottest females (Hatsukoi Limited)

Diary of an Anime Lived series in Fuzakenna!

Probably the best example of the School Days experience: a group marathon screening at an anime convention (lolikitsune 12/24/2008)

Some rakes of renown:

Charles II, Rochester, Colonel Charteris: the Rape-Master General (Scottish), the Hellfire Club members

Shout out to all the people I discussed School Days with me on twitter. Even if I couldn’t respond to some of you or I fail to link to your insights that marathon I did watching and discussing the show with all of you (while downing Scotch whiskey) was one of the most fulfilling things I experienced as part of this corner of the anime fandom in the internet (and most definitely made it easier for me to crawl through this remarkable show’s insufferable episodes).

It’s been a difficult year for me and my family, for many reasons I won’t say here. But there is much to be thankful for, especially the health of our precious daughter. Today my wife and I have been married for four years. We’re past our long honeymoon and are now at the time when living well means hard work. There are things about us that probably won’t change – but are revealed to each other as if they were surprises, traps even. Our love is stronger than ever though waves of melancholy wash over me, and I’ll explain why.

We don’t get to watch anime together as much, by far. We never really do now. We used to be able to follow shows as they air, but these things aren’t as important or interesting to her. There’s nothing wrong about this at all. I just miss her company. I dearly wish we watched K-ON!! together. If I could undergo the procedure in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for all of K-ON! to be new again, I just might – so my wife and I can watch together.

Here I share with you my favorite shows we watched together. Most of them are marathons, which is cool in that I love it when she’s the one telling me to play the next episode, and the episode after that: a spark of validation and mutual interest in shared culture.

Yack, Deculture! Here are the shows:

The Vision of Escaflowne

“Wow, you like anime too?” It sounds silly, but I truly truly felt I hit the jackpot with this lovely lady. I mean, come on, I knew she was a rarest of rare finds. I knew I wasn’t going to find a lovelier, smarter, more successful, ojou-sama (complete with laugh) who also liked anime. I knew from our common friends that she played RPGs (Mechwarrior LOL) back in uni, but I didn’t expect anime.

And now she’s the one actually introducing me to stuff. Aaaand, I was duly impressed to learn after the important (to me) names involved in the production: Kawamori Shoji, Sakamoto Maaya, Kanno Yoko. Flying Dragon eventually made it to our wedding reception.

Kare Kano

We also watched this when we were dating. In early 2005 I worked the night shift and I’d sneak into this house we live now at dawn during weekends (with her help) carefully avoiding waking up her folks. I’d catch a snooze in the unoccupied servants’ quarters and wake up when her folks have left for their various projects.

After breakfast we’d watch anime before leaving in the afternoon to wherever we wanted. She introduced me to Kare Kano which we played on bootlegged VCDs in her living room. I was floored, and I didn’t know anime love stories set in high school can be so freaking intelligent. Too bad it ended the way it infamously did. Nonetheless, it was the show we watched when we were falling in love. Yukino I (concerto) also made it to our wedding reception.

The Prince of Tennis

This was the time we were watching all sorts of silliness (School Rumble, Yakitate! Japan), and in the spirit of that silliness, less than half a year into our marriage we marathoned ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT (178) episodes of this show. I haven’t learned to play tennis yet, and I took this show SERIOUSLY. I mean I took the sports action as serious as fuck, despite the absurd shonen power levels going ridiculously out of hand.

But you don’t need me to tell you that you don’t get to burn through ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT EPISODES (and a movie, and a bunch of OVAs) without seriously enjoying yourselves. We certainly did, though it’s all so incredibly stupid now. She however, continued reading all of the manga and follow The New Prince of Tennis. I love my wife. I didn’t say she’s absolutely perfect.

Itazura na Kiss

We raged. We d’awwed. We laughed. WE RAGED AGAIN. We chuckled. WE RAGED SOME MORE. And before we knew it we’ve fallen for these characters – often despicable for either being retarded or for being complete assholes. But just as Naoki found himself eroded into a heart open enough to love an idiot like Kotoko, we found ourselves in-love with both of them and their family, and this incredibly irritating and heart-warming show.

Code Geass

I’m not sure about this one, given the proliferation of gay-looking Lelouch figurines in our room as a result of her watching this show with me. Well, I suppose I have pretty nice Kallen ones thanks to her. But man, marathoning the first season, then watching R2 every week with her was probably the most fun we had following a show as it aired. That and Toradora!

EVERYTHING IS BRIGHT

But sorry honey, XXXXXX is DEAD. Deal with it.

Macross 7

The only Macross show she actually really enjoyed. My wife is a total Minmay hater, but for whatever damn reason she actually liked Sivil . Yeah, her (but she adored Mylene and especially Millya Fallnya Jenius). In any case, part of my indestructible love for Macross 7 is due to how much fun we had watching, even when she’d make fun of me when I fall apart in tears when Gigil sings Power to the Dream.

For all the reasons (that seem strange to Macross fans) I love Macross 7, how we watched it together she and I shines brightly among them.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

This is pretty damn special. This is the show we marathoned that I had to play catch-up. Sometimes I’d be so tired from work that I’d pass out while watching and my wife would watch the next 10 episodes while I was out cold. Well, there was a lot of episodes (110) so I could catch up (had to do so many times LOL).

Seriously though, this was an incredible experience for me… because she ate it all up. I loved how we’d discuss the principles of politics and governance that occur in the show, because her perspective is amazing, being a public servant all her career (I am for stretches), and a member of the military as well.

Also, it’s absolutely brilliant to have someone to hold me after the Battle of Mar-Ardetta.

Aria, all of it

My wife’s nickname starts with an “A,” our daughter’s name starts with an “A,” not entirely devoid of coincidence with this show we’ve come to love so much. We leisurely watched Aria the Animation, finding Neo Venezia quite interesting and rather wonderful. Aria the Natural didn’t make us any more fascinated with Aqua though it explored so much of it. Rather, we really fell in love with the girls.

It’s like we wanted to be their friends too, but kind of wanting to just watch because we like their chemistry the way it is. In a perfect fantasy, we’d have tours with each of them in their own gondolas in another honeymoon.

Aria the Origination rushed at us with unexpected power. Gone was the quiet reflection afforded by an illusory perpetuity in Natural. I mean, it’s still quiet, but there were inevitable changes, big changes, and what was at stake the whole time is now in play. Then it ends.

But not really, we’ve gone on to collect the manga when we can, and find our things, our desktops, colored by the blues and whites of what used to be but a harsh red planet in our imaginations.

—

Other Notables: Macross Frontier, Gundam 00, Lucky Star, Xam’d: Lost Memories, Moyashimon, Skip Beat

—

Thank you, dear reader, for remembering love with me and my wife here. May you find someone you can enjoy these and other shows in a way that’s special to both of you. I you have that person in your life, fill your time with wonderful shows to watch, and find these shows made more wonderful by each other’s company.

ghostlightning x sybilant forever

Further Reading

Another love story filled with anime here on We Remember Love (Donkangoljones 03/16/2010)

Diary of an Anime Lived at Fuzakenna! (Archive)

This is not a review.

A friend and contemporary in anime blogging gave me the task of writing how great Planetes is and gave me three days to do so. I thought at first that this was the easiest job in the world because Planetes is great, and to me, undeniably so. But then, how exactly is it great? There’s so much goodness in it – be it contemplative, corny, inspiring, laugh-out-loud funny, tear-jerkingly-sad, melancholic, and grindingly great. What would I talk about? Where should I start?

In the end it is an easy job after all. To me, Planetes is great because it told a story that is set in a fantastic fictional world and yet that story is made of the truth about things. It told stories, it told real stories about how it is to be an adult. It told my story too (and I’m in the middle of my own personal Planetes arc). And I will tell you if you would do me the honor of reading.

You see, this man is me and his story is my own:

Dolf founded Traum Space Development, a venture company with Fee Carmichael. Traum had a good run until meeting natural limits to growth, specifically an inability to scale operations at the level Multinational Corporations can.

There’s no turning back from humanity’s new way of life. And we have to rely on space for the energy to support that way of life. Space development requires that you work on a large scale. Funding. Organization. Political clout. Without those you get swallowed up by another entity.

Dolf let Technora acquire Traum and was absorbed into the larger firm. He found himself a Division Manager, and Fee became a team leader within the Debris Collection Section where she can still pilot a ship.

Being an outsider, he was not welcomed by the Technora incumbents, who tolerate him because of his stellar productivity. His excellence became a threat however, and he was banished to a shell company ‘subsidiary.’ Dolf turned that around and used the opportunity to broker a deal with the chief developer of the ship headed to Jupiter which gave him leverage over Technora.

Dolf cut a deal with the distasteful Dr. Locksmith to find his own independence as a manager and rejected Technora’s overtures to give him a ‘lapdog’ VP position. Dolf is a badass, and I am too.

…well not really, but there are some personally striking parallels. I won’t get into some details of my own story since it’s ongoing (I’m in the thick of some nasty drama). While I haven’t been in management as long as Dolf has (maybe a decade or so for him to my 6 years or so), I’ve gone through some of the shit he’s gone through and prevailed in.

When I was an entry-level grunt (I was often this at many jobs: lecturer at university, copywriter, production assistant, producer for radio news and public affairs, paralegal, etc) I couldn’t wait to become ‘one of them,’ and by that I meant management. It was either become them or hate them.

I had left grad school with a Marxist view on things, and mingling mostly with fellow entry-level grunts I found it easy to distrust management. To us they were but gatekeepers who distribute favor and rewards. The real work was done by us proles. I felt we were the ones who always get shafted while managers get to order us around and get paid much better.

I was so fucking wrong.

Around 2004 I got my first break and was hired on the spot as a manager for training and development in a call center. The guy who hired me and was supposed to be my boss got promoted within months of my joining and I was floating until absorbed by the human resources department. Within that unit I built my own Organization Development sub-unit.

Middle management was the fucking worst place to be in. Supervisors, and front-line managers have the unenviable problem of having so much responsibility with laughable authority. I was in a huge company, around 4,000 employees which would balloon to about 6,000 when I left. I was able to observe so many middle managers at work. They were answerable to so many higher-ups, who gave moving targets and inconsistent directives. Us middle managers would have to sell these to the staff.

The staff had us. How so? It’s because they could just quit; when they do, overall productivity suffers and it’s on us. There was such a huge demand for skilled call center workers at the time so the proles really had us by our nuts. We really didn’t make any important decisions – only carry out directives from senior managers.

When I was a grunt I hated managers (I couldn’t distinguish managers from each other then). We fellow grunts enjoyed manipulating them, tricking them, running rings around them. When I was a middle manager, I couldn’t help but begin hating the staff (not my own staff who were awesome, but staff in general) who were selfish, narrow minded short-sighted good-for-nothings.

But I hated senior managers even more.

They couldn’t make up their fucking minds. They had no idea how to run the place. They were putting us in the firing line while they issue directives from the safety of their offices. Worse, they put on airs. They think they’re so awesome and expect to be treated special due to their rank.

I did love my boss though, but they shafted her. When they forced her out (due to character assassination and blackmail), I turned in my resignation as well. I landed on my feet in an international corporation and was now a senior manager myself who reported directly to the Board of Directors and the Chairman himself.

Now I finally am a man.

Now it will be different. I get to do real business now, or so I thought. To be fair, I did and am proud of the work I accomplished. But at this level, it’s really shitty too. Now the egos are really, really huge. And people fought. Boardrooms were cesspools of inauthenticity. People say yes, but mean fuck you. Now the work is about making deals.

You try to make deals with really shitty people. I got played. I played harder. I told myself I would never fuck anyone over. I’m proud that I never did. The dread that crept up to me was that the higher your rank, the more compromised you become. The higher you go up, the less people you can trust. It’s not even personal! This isn’t just about the inside of the corporation – it extends to the world of clients, partners, suppliers, and the government.

Now I finally am THE man.

I found myself in government last year, in a government owned and controlled corporation (a GOCC, the fucking worst of both worlds). While nowhere as naive as I was at 22, at 32 I was no longer concerned at becoming popular. Having been issued a clear mandate as a chief of my own division, I was prepared to be hated and would not compromise.

After fighting and scrapping both known enemies and traitors, I witnessed the chief executive get replaced by the President of the Republic. This new guy, he actually had the cheek to tell me how big a part I’m going to play in his administration, and gave me a great assignment. I finished it in record time under duress.

After submission, he then purged the whole organization of everyone I am associated with, me included. Due to the upcoming national elections in June, I can’t get appointed to my next organization until July. I’m fucked, but not defeated.

You see, the things that happened to me is similar to Dolf’s career but his prevailing over adversity isn’t the source of my power. Among Planetes characters I may seem like Dolf outwardly, but the core of me is Tanabe Ai. I actually fucking love doing good work. I may not be as detail-oriented, or even an operations guy like Dolf who can run things like clockwork (I’m a planner, an idea man), or as industrious as Tababe, but like her I love – period. The things I do are worthwhile because I do it with love.

Planetes is awesome because its portrayal of how organizations behave, and how people behave within it rings true. I’ve seen these slices of life in many lives among the office ladies and salarymen in my own milieu. I’ve seen these play out in university, an advertising firm, a broadcast network, sales organizations, a political party during an election campaign, a call center or three, a BPO or three, a conglomerate, and in government.

You will meet awesome, awesome people. Sometimes, these same people will suck. Most people do, but sometimes they will surprise you with awesomeness too.

Jobs are often easy or hard depending on the people you work with, or work for. Saying how awesome Planetes is, working with the context of my own experience of the show is really the easiest job in the world.

Further Reading

Enjoy the TV Tropes page, from which I excerpt this:

Mohs Scale Of Sci Fi Hardness: Perhaps the hardest science fiction ever produced. Let’s assess; Detailed orbital mechanics, realistic effects of space on health, dependency theory, diapers under spacesuits, and invisible laser beams. INVISIBLE LASER BEAMS. Even the gratuitous In Space Everyone Can See Your Face is justified as mere thematic close-ups on the characters’ faces — with their faceplates down. Its premise — the collection of space garbage to prevent multimillion-dollar spacecraft from being scrapped by screws — is a Real Life problem but economically unfeasible (nowadays we Just Ignore It – military satellites are fitted with maneuvering thrusters to dodge but nobody cleans it up), but this is actually a major plot point — though the job is essential to actual commercial space travel, the fact that nobody can find a way to make money off it means they ignored it right up until the accident that killed Yuri’s wife.Then the Debris Sections were formed in response to public outcry — and staffed by underpaid office drones with gear older than they are.

Yes! This is how businesses and governments behave too!

If you want to introduce someone to Planetes and you don’t want to show a review, here’s the secret (otou-san 12/09/2009)

A great look into Hachimaki, who I practically ignored in this post (Shinmaru 01/27/2010)

A collection of concise posts on interesting moments in Planetes (schneider 2009)

Planetes speaks the language of love (gaguri 08/21/2009)

This is not a review.

I generally fail at following this show. I rely on reading blog posts to understand what’s going on. As much as I fail at this, I can at least appreciate what seems to me on of the core themes of the show: failure itself. Episode three in particular, speaks of it clearly to me.

The myth of Icarus, is a tale of failure, where the young boy whose father fashioned a pair of wings from feathers and wax flew too close to the sun and too close to the sea in a fit of heedlessness and consequently melted the wax binding the feathers together and plunged into the sea. It is a story of someone doing what’s more than necessary, in this case to escape from captivity on the island of Crete.

In this episode Akashi and her college circle engineered a flying machine for a competition. She designed it to be flown by someone whose physical traits were so slight and lacking of mass, and “I” was the perfect fit for the machine and the competition. He failed spectacularly by training hard to build strength, and therefore gaining mass. The flying machine was no longer fit for him, so close to the competition.

“I” spectacularly failed at something by exceeding expectations. Akashi engineered a prototype flying machine to his current specifications. She and her ‘circle’ not only didn’t want him to change, but also didn’t expect him to be capable of changing. That is, no one expected him to actually train for the flight test and competition. By exerting effort, “I” failed.

I suppose it’s easy enough to read this as I wanting to change, to exert effort, to try hard, in order to impress others most notably Akashi; while Akashi just wants him the way he is. It’s a reassuring, feel-good message. This isn’t what got to me this episode. It isn’t even the somewhat conflicting message of “do your best to better yourself” and “accepting yourself for who you are (and others for who they are) and not what you want yourself (and others) to be.”

It’s just the horrible feeling of failing at something despite tremendous commitment, but because you were doing it wrong.

I graduated from elementary at the top of my class (it was a very small school), and moved on to a large high school. My idea of “fitting in” was competing hard for grades and impressing my teachers. People looked at me like I was nuts. The truly smart people didn’t really want to make friends with me and I was kind of stuck with slacker nerds. I was 13, and I totally overcompensated by going Bancho which shocked everyone who knew me so far and climbed to the top of the gangs of delinquents by the end of senior year.

For a time I was cool, and was popular/notorious because I had friends (and thuggish senpai) among the upperclassmen. By senior year, nobody gave a shit about punk bad boys. The fashionable bad boys were rich kids who had cars and took girls on drives. I was irrelevant, despite being at the top, a ‘Grand Triskelion’ of the Tau Gamma Phi chapter in our school.

To cap it off, I was denied participation to our graduation because I beat up a punk three days before graduation day. We both had it coming. Yay me.

I promise you, this is not the only time something like this happened. Throughout university, then after graduation, I would launch hard into a certain direction, change course mid-way at full speed, ridiculously overcompensate, then humiliate myself. Allow me to stress this: these periods lasted years, just like “I” in Tatami Galaxy. Truthfully, my life didn’t start turning out until I was 27 years old (I am 33 now).

Watching this episode was rough. I was retching and wanted to puke. The story wasn’t tragic. “I” didn’t elicit sympathy from me. What I had for him was disgust for his pathetic existence. I found him neither funny or inspiring. In him, and in the circumstances he found himself – however absurd, I felt forcefully reminded of all the fail in my life since I started thinking about why I wanted things.

This is the point of this essay when you’d expect me to say that things are okay now. I have a lovely wife and a cute daughter and got farther in my career than many of my contemporaries (or people my age). No. Far from it. The problems I deal with now are far more complex and consequential than ever. The failures I face more humiliating and punishing, since there’s far more at stake.

But I’m far tougher. My soul is not charred with idleness and wasted passion. I may not know whether I prevail or not over the problems I face, but I am more Sisyphus than I am Icarus. I can be with having to roll up the rock I am given up this hill, never knowing if there is a point ever to come of this. Myself at 17, whose younger brothers were never bothered by thugs because my name was feared throughout the schools in the area, has nothing on me as I am today (though no one is, or should be afraid of me anymore).

If you’ve read this far, thank you for indulging me. I’m a sucker for an affecting story, and Tatami Galaxy 03 (Cycling Club Soleil) got me good. Let me leave you with this, a glimpse into one of my failures:

At university I was trained for two things; the scholarship for literature, and the craft of writing poetry. Today I am neither a literary scholar, nor a practicing poet. My specialization in poststructuralism and post-colonial theory made me irrelevant in an era of Philippine literary scholarship dedicated to retrieve, archive, and translate 50,000 years worth of (often oral) literary traditions in over 70 vernacular languages.  While I got published in a couple of magazines a few times, I failed at getting into poetry fellowships and never won the contests I joined.

But I loved literature and loved poetry, and, I absolutely loved this poem, that this episode of Tatami Galaxy made me remember love for it:

Musee des Beaux Arts

by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William Meredith and Monroe K. Spears,
Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden.

As Auden tells me how Breughel tells it, my melancholy over my failures is of concern only to me. Carry on dear reader, again thank you for indulging me.

Note: The painting by Breughel that Auden speaks of is above the second paragraph of this blog post.

Far more useful posts on Tatami Galaxy

Tatami Galaxy and Our Inevitable Mistakes (8C 05/08/2010)

Red String Theory and the New Fascination: Thoughts on Tatami Galaxy (2DT 05/19/2010)

Tatami Galaxy 3 and 4 (Vendredi 05/14/2010)

Fast Dialogue is Fast for a Reason (Bateszi 04/24/2010)

[While there is no discussion of aquatic vessels in this post, spoilers are in these waters]

Watching School Days was awful. It’s not one of those shows that is gripping despite the cringe-inducing events being narrated. I thought Kaiji was tough to watch, but that show had a lot going for it in terms of the the drama and excitement of gambling. School Days only has romance and sex to keep the excitement levels up. As a romance, it’s awful (more like the failure of romance), and as sexual content is concerned, there’s a lot of it but it’s by no means anything more than a visual tease, and not that exciting anyway.

Having said all that, I think School Days is important. I think it’s remarkable and provocative. It’s suggested to me that it is a parody of the tradition of Ecchi and eroge specifically (the more gratuitous sexual harem tradition of harem shows). I have very little experience with this tradition, so I will limit my speculation regarding this particular aspect of this analysis.

But yes, there is parody perhaps by way of deconstruction in that School Days takes the tropes of the tradition apart and puts it back together in unexpected or at the very least non-traditional ways. Like how SDS put it, it answers the question “what would happen if a harem lead actually went after all the girls?” (sexually). Well, there will be consequences. I will look into those, but specifically in the light of the idea of the rake, or the sexually successful young male.

The Dangerous Young Man

There is a difference between Makoto and the concept of the rake. The rake is what would be commonly thought of as a playboy, but the tradition of rakes is an English one.

The long heyday of the English rake lasted roughly from 1660, when Charles II returned from exile, until the death of George IV in 1830. There was a brief revival of some aspects of rakish behaviour among the cronies of Edward, Prince of Wales, in the second half of the nineteenth century. After that, what later became known as Victorian values made such behaviour largely unacceptable.

The first attribute of the rake was cold hedonism rather than grand romantic passion. He was usually a cynical exploiter of woemen, often a reckless gambler, sometime a touchy egoist quick to take offence and to seek redress in duels. He could be a good friend and a bad enemy. He was often aristocratic and sometimes rich.

There were of course womanisers and bullies in other countries, but there was widespread acceptance that the English rake was the most cynical, heartless and brutal of the type.

— Fergus Linnane, “The Lives of the English Rakes”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester: one incredibly degenerate douchebag

In anime, such characters would appear in the shojo tradition, either perhaps as a character to be redeemed by women (Ichinose Takumi and Okazaki Shinichi from Nana, Mori Ranmaru from Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge, The Red King from Basara), or as tragic villains (Kiryuu Toga and Ohtori Akio from Revolutionary Girl Utena). These characters can range from mischievous to degenerate, but are otherwise very tame compared to the rakes of (English) history.

What’s important here, is that all of them are Alpha Males, competing or banding together with other alpha males. School Days’ Makoto, is no alpha male.

Makoto is, weak, lacking in self-confidence, naive, and very much the template self-insert character in the harem tradition. However, he is also regarded as “zeitgeist of worthless male leads.” He ends up doing pretty terrible things, all related to sex and relationships with the women he interacts with (some of them are dear friends to each other, some are his friends). He is awful and irredeemable, and he was murdered spectacularly by the one he corrupted the most – actively, and through his irresponsible negligence.

To get to that end however, School Days relies on contrivance to sexually pair Makoto with so many girls. At the onset, Makoto is an Omega Male, that is the opposite of the kind of confident and capable male that attracts women. Sekai is the one who, by lavishing attention to him and showing her own (then) unlikely attraction for him enabled him to “climb the steps of adulthood,” that is, have sex and have the (unwarranted) confidence to get sexual favors from women.

It is remarkable, that with all Sekai’s attempts to make Makoto fit for romantic relationships, he makes no progress at all. He has truly nothing to offer women except a willing penis to indulge their sexual curiosity, and (quite sadly,) their romantic insecurities.

But how is the contrivance executed? Episode after episode Makoto becomes worse and worse, but his stock among women rises higher and higher. Back story and flashbacks reveal Makoto to be an upstanding young man, considerate and “princely” (in the Utena sense) to young girls. Sekai does a background check and reveals Makoto to be enjoy a concord of approval from school society. Makoto has always been a catch, the school’s best-kept secret. He’s not an omega, he is at least an Omicron Male, or maybe even higher in the Greek alphabet.

In the tradition of American high school love stories, there are always alpha males, and the omicron males are portrayed as outliers even within their omega society. These omicrons are ugly ducklings who clean up nice but often compete directly with the alpha males who are portrayed as insensitive jerks, or as villainous rakes. In Japanese harem anime tradition, the alpha males are non-existent. There is no threatening male competition for our omegas and omicrons. There is no such competition for Makoto.

Sawanaga would have been, and it’s part of Kotonoha’s terrible irony that she let that guy deflower her. But it was the first time wherein the male was not in power – he had no power and posed no threat to anyone despite himself (openly lecherous and obviously attracted to Kotonoha that way). Kotonoha let him have sex with her, she was a gatekeeper who did not participate in the act emotionally, thereby retaining all romantic and sexual power when it was time for her to reckon with him (to dismiss him). This guy is not competition for Makoto.

The Triangle and the Female Protagonists

With all this focus on Makoto, School Days actually has multiple protagonists. The female characters have a lot of agency and have distinct narratives as characters even if they all point toward Makoto. School Days passes the Bechdel Test of Feminist criticism. No one is going to argue however, that this show positively portrays females. To be fair, this show doesn’t portray human beings as inspirations to follow.

Kotonoha and Sekai are protagonists just as Makoto is, and form the points in the primary triangle within the harem. The difference is the levels of cowardice in both. Kotonoha was a coward to face the reality that Makoto is wholly undeserving of her affections and persisted with her delusions. She is a coward in how she lets herself be bullied by her peers. Otherwise, she is a moral center in the show up until the end. But this is a kind of moral center that is passive and victimized. Her morality is straight from the Beatitudes (“Blessed are the meek… Blessed are the clean of heart…”). She is what is pure besieged by corruption. She succumbs to it in the worst way at the worst time, and her recourse to all of this is her spectacular revenge.

Sekai too, was a moral center of the show up until she gave in to the Makoto who she spoiled. Sure, as Setsuna notes she’s inauthentic the whole time, but I submit that there are good intentions there. She would have suffered losing to Kotonoha if Makoto did make his girlfriend happy the way Sekai trained him to, and if he became happy for it. But no, there are suppressed desires among sexes and Sekai had stronger dosages of both repression and desire.

The important thing to consider is how Sekai is the catalyst. She is the active facilitator of the romantic and sexual devolution of their corner of their high school society. The Basketball Club’s antics with the sex tapes indicate a pretty degenerate sexual youth culture, but for the initially “pure” members of the triangle, Sekai initiated the action.

I am fond of emperorj’s description of this show as a descent into hell. Hell in this case is a world of deceitful humans with no accountability, where one’s heart’s wishes are given no consideration. I think it’s also remarkable how sex is an end that is not particularly given thematic or symbolic weight. It is treated as an end for males to arrive to, and as a means for females to arrive to something else.

Females are portrayed as sexually attractive, but there is no portrayal of any actual pleasure from sex, except that when the males get some of it, they want more of it. The females, nothing. We can make the conjecture that they must like it at some level for them to persist in it, but this is wholly ignored and it is very interesting how it’s all ignored. This too, is hell.

A Personal Note

Why do we hate Makoto? Since the tradition of harem literature provides for self-insert characters, I will relate to Makoto as well as shamelessly speak for other male viewers. Of course I will be often wrong in many cases, but I suspect that I will represent quite a few viewers too.

We hate Makoto because we wanted some of what he got. We don’t think he deserved any of the attention he got, but more importantly the sexual action he got. I was no rake in high school, but I was no wallflower either. I was an honor-student-turned-bancho and for years I enjoyed notoriety and attention. Could I have gotten away with some of what Makoto did? Maybe I could have. I didn’t, and I tell myself it’s because I’m a better man than Makoto. (Which is true but…)

Even if I weren’t getting the attention that I did, I would’ve been (as most of us would) a better human being than him, though perhaps most of us can relate to his lack of confidence. In hindsight I didn’t quite lack it as bad as harem leads – I got turned down by my one pure crush after all, year after year. Part of that devotion to the attainable is cowardice too (to fail where I’m supposed to be able to score) – but yes the antipathy towards Makoto is also guilt and regret for missed opportunities in youth.

The important thing here is, we may strongly disapprove of (alpha male) rakes, but a lot of this is Nietzchean slave morality. We hate Makoto because he shares many of our traits, but instead becomes successful like the rakes, in un-rakish fashion: without overarching villainy, without determination and making a project or lifestyle out of things, by being a leaf in the wind of high school sex and romance, and wholly without a chance of, or with such disinterest in, actually being with women and relating with them as human beings.

When we see the Kiryuu Togas and the Ohtori Akios fall, we take satisfaction in their comeuppance but somehow enjoy it with a different kind of schadenfreude. We don’t relish their fall, more than we delight in the triumph of the protagonists that best them. Makoto we can or are invited to relish in his fall, his grisly death. We are asked to look at the dark characters in the looking glass (Sekai too), and enjoy their terrible murders.

Me, I’m numbed by it all. I think Kotonoha is the tragic heroine of the show, and there is no redemption, no solace, and no future for her.

—

The evil in School Days is cowardice, lust, avarice, and irresponsibility. These are all very relatable failings, things we see in ourselves past and present. It is present among almost all characters in the show the same way it is present in different degrees in all of us. Makoto makes it easy for us to relate to all of this, superbly performing his function as a self-insert character in the Japanese harem narrative tradition.

Further Reading

A Diary post on how my experience with an alpha male like Ohtori Akio.

A less mature reflection on the concept of omega males getting attention from high school’s hottest females (Hatsukoi Limited)

Diary of an Anime Lived series in Fuzakenna!

Probably the best example of the School Days experience: a group marathon screening at an anime convention (lolikitsune 12/24/2008)

Some rakes of renown:

Charles II, Rochester, Colonel Charteris: the Rape-Master General (Scottish), the Hellfire Club members

Shout out to all the people I discussed School Days with me on twitter. Even if I couldn’t respond to some of you or I fail to link to your insights that marathon I did watching and discussing the show with all of you (while downing Scotch whiskey) was one of the most fulfilling things I experienced as part of this corner of the anime fandom in the internet (and most definitely made it easier for me to crawl through this remarkable show’s insufferable episodes).

It’s been a difficult year for me and my family, for many reasons I won’t say here. But there is much to be thankful for, especially the health of our precious daughter. Today my wife and I have been married for four years. We’re past our long honeymoon and are now at the time when living well means hard work. There are things about us that probably won’t change – but are revealed to each other as if they were surprises, traps even. Our love is stronger than ever though waves of melancholy wash over me, and I’ll explain why.

We don’t get to watch anime together as much, by far. We never really do now. We used to be able to follow shows as they air, but these things aren’t as important or interesting to her. There’s nothing wrong about this at all. I just miss her company. I dearly wish we watched K-ON!! together. If I could undergo the procedure in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for all of K-ON! to be new again, I just might – so my wife and I can watch together.

Here I share with you my favorite shows we watched together. Most of them are marathons, which is cool in that I love it when she’s the one telling me to play the next episode, and the episode after that: a spark of validation and mutual interest in shared culture.

Yack, Deculture! Here are the shows:

The Vision of Escaflowne

“Wow, you like anime too?” It sounds silly, but I truly truly felt I hit the jackpot with this lovely lady. I mean, come on, I knew she was a rarest of rare finds. I knew I wasn’t going to find a lovelier, smarter, more successful, ojou-sama (complete with laugh) who also liked anime. I knew from our common friends that she played RPGs (Mechwarrior LOL) back in uni, but I didn’t expect anime.

And now she’s the one actually introducing me to stuff. Aaaand, I was duly impressed to learn after the important (to me) names involved in the production: Kawamori Shoji, Sakamoto Maaya, Kanno Yoko. Flying Dragon eventually made it to our wedding reception.

Kare Kano

We also watched this when we were dating. In early 2005 I worked the night shift and I’d sneak into this house we live now at dawn during weekends (with her help) carefully avoiding waking up her folks. I’d catch a snooze in the unoccupied servants’ quarters and wake up when her folks have left for their various projects.

After breakfast we’d watch anime before leaving in the afternoon to wherever we wanted. She introduced me to Kare Kano which we played on bootlegged VCDs in her living room. I was floored, and I didn’t know anime love stories set in high school can be so freaking intelligent. Too bad it ended the way it infamously did. Nonetheless, it was the show we watched when we were falling in love. Yukino I (concerto) also made it to our wedding reception.

The Prince of Tennis

This was the time we were watching all sorts of silliness (School Rumble, Yakitate! Japan), and in the spirit of that silliness, less than half a year into our marriage we marathoned ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT (178) episodes of this show. I haven’t learned to play tennis yet, and I took this show SERIOUSLY. I mean I took the sports action as serious as fuck, despite the absurd shonen power levels going ridiculously out of hand.

But you don’t need me to tell you that you don’t get to burn through ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY EIGHT EPISODES (and a movie, and a bunch of OVAs) without seriously enjoying yourselves. We certainly did, though it’s all so incredibly stupid now. She however, continued reading all of the manga and follow The New Prince of Tennis. I love my wife. I didn’t say she’s absolutely perfect.

Itazura na Kiss

We raged. We d’awwed. We laughed. WE RAGED AGAIN. We chuckled. WE RAGED SOME MORE. And before we knew it we’ve fallen for these characters – often despicable for either being retarded or for being complete assholes. But just as Naoki found himself eroded into a heart open enough to love an idiot like Kotoko, we found ourselves in-love with both of them and their family, and this incredibly irritating and heart-warming show.

Code Geass

I’m not sure about this one, given the proliferation of gay-looking Lelouch figurines in our room as a result of her watching this show with me. Well, I suppose I have pretty nice Kallen ones thanks to her. But man, marathoning the first season, then watching R2 every week with her was probably the most fun we had following a show as it aired. That and Toradora!

EVERYTHING IS BRIGHT

But sorry honey, XXXXXX is DEAD. Deal with it.

Macross 7

The only Macross show she actually really enjoyed. My wife is a total Minmay hater, but for whatever damn reason she actually liked Sivil . Yeah, her (but she adored Mylene and especially Millya Fallnya Jenius). In any case, part of my indestructible love for Macross 7 is due to how much fun we had watching, even when she’d make fun of me when I fall apart in tears when Gigil sings Power to the Dream.

For all the reasons (that seem strange to Macross fans) I love Macross 7, how we watched it together she and I shines brightly among them.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

This is pretty damn special. This is the show we marathoned that I had to play catch-up. Sometimes I’d be so tired from work that I’d pass out while watching and my wife would watch the next 10 episodes while I was out cold. Well, there was a lot of episodes (110) so I could catch up (had to do so many times LOL).

Seriously though, this was an incredible experience for me… because she ate it all up. I loved how we’d discuss the principles of politics and governance that occur in the show, because her perspective is amazing, being a public servant all her career (I am for stretches), and a member of the military as well.

Also, it’s absolutely brilliant to have someone to hold me after the Battle of Mar-Ardetta.

Aria, all of it

My wife’s nickname starts with an “A,” our daughter’s name starts with an “A,” not entirely devoid of coincidence with this show we’ve come to love so much. We leisurely watched Aria the Animation, finding Neo Venezia quite interesting and rather wonderful. Aria the Natural didn’t make us any more fascinated with Aqua though it explored so much of it. Rather, we really fell in love with the girls.

It’s like we wanted to be their friends too, but kind of wanting to just watch because we like their chemistry the way it is. In a perfect fantasy, we’d have tours with each of them in their own gondolas in another honeymoon.

Aria the Origination rushed at us with unexpected power. Gone was the quiet reflection afforded by an illusory perpetuity in Natural. I mean, it’s still quiet, but there were inevitable changes, big changes, and what was at stake the whole time is now in play. Then it ends.

But not really, we’ve gone on to collect the manga when we can, and find our things, our desktops, colored by the blues and whites of what used to be but a harsh red planet in our imaginations.

—

Other Notables: Macross Frontier, Gundam 00, Lucky Star, Xam’d: Lost Memories, Moyashimon, Skip Beat

—

Thank you, dear reader, for remembering love with me and my wife here. May you find someone you can enjoy these and other shows in a way that’s special to both of you. I you have that person in your life, fill your time with wonderful shows to watch, and find these shows made more wonderful by each other’s company.

ghostlightning x sybilant forever

Further Reading

Another love story filled with anime here on We Remember Love (Donkangoljones 03/16/2010)

Diary of an Anime Lived at Fuzakenna! (Archive)